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Intangible Value
when attained, has amazing power

Bottled water has it? How can bottled water be more
costly than the same volume of high octane fuel? Luxury Brands claim to
have it. But we have other more interesting examples.....

Take a moment to consider the two items of
jewelry below. One unique, hand-crafted and made of 24 carat gold, the
other a replica made of iron with a simple inscription. Which of these
is more valuable?

Which, had it been worn to a ball in any decade of
the 19th century would have bestowed status and esteem and
which would have labelled the wearer vulgar?

Is it all a Game?

The answer lies in the badge or symbolic
value, a purely perceptional and artificial construct, but powerful,
and daily we see its impact on a society plagued by conspicuous
consumption. Join me in wondering "why do people, HAVE to buy things
they don't need, with money they don't have (school fees paid yet?), to
try and impress people they don't even know?"

I would suggest reading a little further on Intrinsic vs
Extrinsic Motivators, which is a key topic within the psychology of
Gamification. Would you pay your daughter or son to learn how to read?
Here is an introduction to this fascinating subject
Back to vulgarity and class.... Between
1813 and 1815 the Prussian royal family,
at the behest of Friedrich Wilhelm III, urged all citizens to
contribute their gold and silver jewelry towards funding the war effort
against Napoleon during the War
of Liberation. In exchange the
people were given iron replica jewelry, often with the inscription Gold
gab ich für Eisen (I gave gold for iron), or Für das Wohl des
Vaterlands (For the welfare of our fatherland). For decades after this, the highest status
jewelry one could wear in Germany was not that made of gold or diamonds. Such
trivial and banal materialism could not replace value embedded in the nobility
of self-sacrifice, duty and patriotism, as reflected by the iron jewelry.

In a similar vein, it is well
documented that of those reading this and getting a headache, the
majority of those headaches could very effectively be dealt with by taking a
lactose pill, otherwise called a placebo whose therapeutic quality is purely reliant
on our perception of it.

Problems and their Solutions

Nowadays, many of the world’s problems are
seen as problems of reality alone, when in fact, if we understand that
value has a component of intangibility, the major component of the
problem is that of perception. We should acknowledge the following:

Things and people are not so much what they are, but what
we think they are.

Things are what we compare them to, context
and framing are everything.

We have discredited psychology and discounted its value to
our detriment.

Yet, often the most effective solution includes a focus and understanding of psychology.

If you can, you should google how Mustafa Ataturk and Nicolas
Sarkozy succeeded and failed in dealing with their secular goals
(Kemalism vs. Socialism) and women’s veils, or how The Royal Mail and
La Poste (French mail service), went about dealing with complaints on process
issues and slow mail delivery, in very different manners, one near disaster the other
with great success.

As a last step, advertisers and PR campaigners make their money by
exploiting our cognitive dissonance. They seek to understand a brand's
emotional truth. What does it take for this strangeness to manifest
itself? What would it take for your brand to be as cool as that of Harley
Davidson, the free advertising space on someone's chest is not a bad
result, but what of the counter-culture wal-mart statement? Do you
promote your own brand, and in how many ways? What other brand's
qualities do you aspire to emulate? Is your branding
consistent with your strategy and operational delivery? How does
the culture of your organisation reflect the values of your brand?

Only an emotional connection, with some resonance, can engender such loyalty.

There are things about which we should now ponder. These things should not only concern your business,
but everything about how American presidents get electoral support, why some men insist on only one type
of beer (but would fail a blind tasting test!), indeed how we all make decisions?

What of your personal brand - is it worth anything, does it
stand out from the rest? Is there resonance or dissonance between your
various persona?

How will you protect your brand?

Who is paying to promote your brand?

Emotional connections are required to engender loyalty, but what are they, what should they be?

Now can you answer why GDP is such a poor reflection of a
nation's wealth. What happens when 10 citizens earn 100k in
a year, instead of a single citizen earning a million?